Neil Gaiman returns to ‘Sandman’ for 2013!

No, you’re not dreaming. Neil Gaiman announced it at Comic-Con International, via the very surprising video above, that he will indeed return to writing his critically-lauded “The Sandman” comic to tell us what led Morpheus to his strange circumstances when we first met the Dream god in 1988’s “The Sandman” No. 1. “Batwoman” artist J.H. Williams III will illustrate the new Vertigo miniseries, which hits next year.

“When I finished writing THE SANDMAN, there was one tale still untold,” Gaiman says in the official announcement. “The story of what had happened to Morpheus to allow him to be so easily captured in THE SANDMAN #1, and why he was returned from far away, exhausted beyond imagining, and dressed for war. It was a story that we discussed telling for SANDMAN’s 20th anniversary… but the time got away from us. And now, with SANDMAN’s 25th anniversary year coming up, I’m delighted, and nervous, that that story is finally going to be told.”

Gaiman dropped the bombshell during the Vertigo panel at Comic-Con, with Williams appearing on stage to further shock and awe the crowd. Each issue of “The Sandman” miniseries will drop day-and-date digitally. The release notes the miniseries’ official title will be announced at a later date.

Never heard of “Sandman”? Well, consider this your year to bone up on all things Dream aka Morpheus and the rest of his protogod siblings that make up the Endless, a dysfunctional family that includes Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, Destruction, Destiny and of course Dream.

As the release notes, “Sandman” is one of the few graphic novels ever to be on the New York Times Best Seller list, a seminal work of sequential art right up there with “Watchmen” and “Maus.” The sophisticated story fuses literary and mythological tropes into another shining example of what creative ground you can cultivate with the comic medium. And yes, it looks darn pretty, too.

The Eisner- and Harvey Award-winning “Sandman” originally ran for 75 issues and is the only comic to win the World Fantasy Award. This is the first time in more than a decade that Gaiman revisits the “Sandman” universe since ending the series.

2013, hurry up.

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